American Planning Association Honors Luskin Center PEV Plan
The Los Angeles section of the American Planning Association (APA) has chosen to honor the Luskin Center’s Southern California Plug-in Electric Vehicle Readiness Plan and Atlas with the 2013 Planning Excellence Award for Best Practice. The award is given annually to a planning tool or project that represents a significant advancement to a specific type of planning practice. The Plan and Atlas were selected on criteria including originality and innovation, transferability, effectiveness, quality of analysis and graphic design. The award will be presented at the APA Los Angeles section ceremony June 13 in San Gabriel, CA.The Southern California PEV Plan develops methods for:
- Tailoring municipal PEV readiness efforts to local land use opportunities.
- Prioritizing the siting of charging stations at workplaces, multi-unit dwellings, and retailers.
- Assessing the pricing and cost-effectiveness of charging opportunities for hosts and drivers.
The Plan also describes how the cost of PEV charging can be driven down by reforming municipal and county permitting processes, building codes, zoning and parking regulations.
The Southern California PEV Atlas provides a comprehensive series of neighborhood maps that characterize PEV ownership by neighborhood and project PEV ownership growth by council of government and utility service areas. Using a regional travel model, the Atlas also estimates time-of-day proximity of PEVs to charging opportunities at workplaces and retail centers.
The Atlas maps additional charging opportunities at multi-unit dwellings and parking facilities. The Southern California PEV Plan, Atlas and other related reports can be found at the PEV Readiness Resource page.
The Los Angeles chapter of the American Planning Association (APA) selected Reclaiming the Right-of-Way: A Toolkit for Creating and Implementing Parklets to receive the 2013 Academic Award of Excellence. The toolkit, a collaboration between UCLA’s Luskin Center, Lewis Center, and the Institute of Transportation Studies, provides a guide for creating “parklets”- small parks in urban areas from the conversion of parking spots and other underutilized spaces for cars into places for people.
Containing best practices from cities across the U.S. and Canada that have implemented parklet projects, the toolkit also encourages users to adapt their plans to their own community. It explores a range of designs options and introduces the concept of “active parklets,” which include simple exercise equipment to provide an opportunity for active recreation within the parklet.
Associate Dean of the Luskin School Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, UCLA Complete Streets Initiative Manager Madeline Brozen, and UCLA Luskin Center Deputy Director Colleen Callahan authored the toolkit on the heels of the Los Angeles City Council vote approving the construction of a series of parklets.
The toolkit is part of a three-phase effort, made possible by a $75,000 grant from The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation. During the second phase, the UCLA team in partnership with the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council installed two active parklets in Downtown that opened in early 2013. The ongoing third phase is an evaluation of the parklets, conducted in collaboration with Parklet Studies. Data will be provided to the LA City Planning Department for reporting to City Council.